Did anyone else keep watching this? The last couple of episodes aired here this week. The final three: Autumn, Sara and Katie. Sara and Katie were the final two, and Katie won. Not a bad outcome. I was rooting for Autumn, and can respect her emphasis on being different, not necessarily better, but she didn’t turn that into a reason to hire her.
Unboxed spoilers:
I didn’t understand why Katie won. She ran around the kitchen like a madman and fucked up her dishes, while Sarah kept her cool and did a good job. Now, I was online at the time so did the judges explain their reasoning?
My impression was that Katie’s dishes were good, as were Sara’s, and that the judges – or at least Todd English, whose kitchen she’d be working in – preferred Katie’s “take charge” personality.
I picked Katie to win pretty early on, and once it became obvious that her personality most closely matched what English was looking for, I think it was her contest to lose by performing really badly, which she never quite did. Other contestants in each round seemed to underperform her when she was at risk of 86ing.
Of course, I can’t blame English for wanting a particular personality for his kitchen, but it made for less-than-compelling episodes. I was pretty sure that neither Autumn nor Sara was going to win against Katie.
FYI, there’s a thread on eGullet.org about the show. Michael Ruhlman, one of the judges, is participating, and a few of the contestants have also posted.
I was a little disapointed by the degree to which it seemed that personality rather than cooking skills caused the judges to declare Katie the winner. Not least because it bugged me that someone who had had as many near disasters as Katie had (the burned fish dish, the overly traditional tureen dish, leading the less successful team, the last course of the final competition being twenty minutes late) went on to win. I didn’t get the feeling that her food was clearly better than Sara’s- though Sara could have performed better- but in the end Todd wanted her personality, and he got it.
Having said that, of the final three, I think she was the one who just plain wanted to win and wanted the job in New York City the most. Wanting to win the most wouldn’t have been enough to win if her cooking hadn’t been as good as it was, but it helped. Katie was cocky- and thus irritating to me, while Autumn wanted to be “different” rather than “better” (a reasonable attitude in some contexts- but not in a job interview. Especially when they practically said “Tell us you are better rather than just different or we’ll 86 you”. Sara didn’t have as explicit a moment when she said something that suggested that she didn’t want to win- but she did think that Autumn shouldn’t have been 86’d when she was- and she made several stupid mistakes in the last couple of episodes.
On the whole, I wouldn’t be surprised if both Autumn and Sara can use their involvement in this program as a way of boosting their visibility in their own comunities.